A Bookful of Girls

“There isn’t anybody that believes in me,” Madge had told herself; and then she had thought of something that Mr. Salome had said to her a few days ago, something that she would have considered it very unbecoming to repeat, even to Eleanor, but the memory of which, thus suddenly recalled, had filled her with such hopefulness that she had sped homeward to the mahogany table almost with a conviction of success. Was it in that sudden rush of hopefulness, so mistaken, alas, so groundless, that she had left the little morocco case lying about? Or had she pulled it out of her pocket with her handkerchief? Or had she really had her pocket picked?

What wonder that in the stress of anxious speculation she was making bad work of her painting! This would never do! She took a long stride backwards, and over went Miss Ricker’s long-suffering easel, prone upon the floor, carrying with it a neighbouring structure of similar unsteadiness, which was, however, happily empty, save for a couple of jam-pots filled with turpentine and oil! These plunged with headlong impetuosity into space, forming little rivers of stickiness, as they rolled half-way across the room. Everybody rushed to the rescue, while Miss Ricker gazed upon the catastrophe with stony displeasure.

By a miracle, the canvas, though “butter-side-down,” had escaped unscathed. Not until she was assured of this did the culprit speak.

“I’m a disgrace to the class,” she said, “and expulsion is the only remedy. Tell Mr. Salome that I have forfeited every right to membership, and it’s quite possible that I may never exaggerate another detail as long as I live.”

“Time’s up in two minutes,” Mary Downing remarked, in her matter-of-fact voice, as she dabbed some yellow-ochre upon her subject’s chin. “I rather think you’ll come back to-morrow.”

“But I do think it’s somebody’s else turn to work behind her,” said Josephine Wilkes.

Miss Ricker gave a faint, assenting smile.

“I think Miss Ricker is very much indebted to Artful Madge,” Harriet Wells declared. “There isn’t another girl in the class who could have knocked that easel over without damaging the picture.”

“Practice makes perfect,” some one observed; and then, time being called, everybody began talking at once, and wit and wisdom were alike lost upon the company.

But Artful Madge was not to be lightly consoled.

“Mother,” she said, that same afternoon, as she came into the little sitting-room over the front entry, where her mother was stitching on the sewing-machine, “I think I should like to do something useful. I’m kind of tired of art.”

Madge had been helping wash the luncheon dishes, and was beginning to wonder whether her talents were not, perhaps, of a purely domestic order.

“I should think you would be tired of it!” said Mrs. Burtwell, in perfect good faith, as she snipped the thread at the end of a seam. “How you can make up your mind to spend all your days bedaubing your clothes with those nasty paints passes my comprehension.”

“But sometimes I daub the canvas,” Madge protested, with unwonted meekness, as she drew a grey woollen sock over her hand, and pounced upon a small hole in the toe; and at that very instant, which Madge was whimsically regarding as a possible turning-point in her career, the doorbell rang.

“A gintleman to see you, Miss,” said Nora, a moment later, handing Madge a card.

“To see me?” asked Madge, incredulously, as she read the name, “Mr. Philip Spriggs! Are you sure he didn’t ask for Father?”

But Nora was quite clear that she had not made a mistake.

“Who is it, Madge?” Mrs. Burtwell queried.

“It’s probably a book agent,” said Madge, as she went down-stairs to the parlour, rather begrudging the interruption to her darning bout.

Standing by the window, hat in hand, was an elderly man of a somewhat severe cast of countenance, as unsuggestive as possible, in his general appearance, of the comparatively frivolous name which a satirical fate had bestowed upon him.

As Madge entered the room he observed, without advancing a step toward her: “You are Miss Burtwell, I suppose. I came to answer your letter in person.”

“My letter?” asked Madge, with a confused impression that something remarkable was going forward.

“Yes; this one,” – and he drew from his pocket the red morocco miniature case.

“Oh!” cried Madge, “how glad I am to have it! – and how kind you are to bring it! – and, oh! that dreadful letter!”

The three aspects of the case had chased each other in rapid succession through her mind, and each had got its-self expressed in turn.

Mr. Spriggs did not relax a muscle of his face.

“I found this on a table in the Public Library,” he stated. “Your directions were so explicit that I could do no less than be guided by them.”

There was something so solemn, almost judicial, about her guest that Madge became quite awestruck.

“Won’t you please take a seat?” she begged, humbly. “I think I could apologise better if you were to sit down.”

“Then you consider that there is occasion to apologise?” he asked, taking the proffered chair, and resting his hat upon the floor.

“Indeed, yes!” said Madge. “It’s perfectly dreadful to think of the letter having fallen into the hands of any one so – ” and she broke short off.

“So what?” asked Mr. Spriggs.

“Why, so dignified and so – very different from – ” but again she found herself unable to finish her sentence.

“From a ‘dear pickpocket?’” he suggested.

“Did I say ‘dear pickpocket’?” cried Madge in consternation. “I didn’t know I said ‘dear.’”

“I suppose you desired to make a favourable impression, in order to get your picture back. There are some very good points about the picture,” he remarked, as he took it out of the case and examined it. “There’s a good deal of drawing in it, and considerable colour.”

“Do you know about pictures?” asked Madge with eager interest.

“Not much. I’ve heard more or less art-jargon in my day; that’s all.”

Madge looked at him suspiciously.

“I am sure you will agree with me that I don’t know much,” he continued, “when I tell you that I prefer your pen-and-ink work to the miniature. ‘The Consequences of Crime’ is full of humour; and I have been given to understand that you can’t produce an effect without skill, – what you would probably dignify with the name of technique. The second small boy on the right is not at all bad.”

“You do know about art!” cried Madge. “I rather think you must be an artist.”

Mr. Spriggs did not exactly change countenance; he only looked as if he were either trying to smile or trying not to. Madge wished she could make out just what were the lines and shadows in his face that produced this singular expression.

“Have you never thought of doing anything for the papers?” he asked.

“Thought of it! I’ve spent four dollars and sixty-one cents in postage within the last ten months, and he always comes back to the ark!”

“‘He’? Comes back where?”

“To the ark. I call the package ‘Noah’s Dove’ because it never finds a place to roost.”

“The original dove did, after a while.” Mr. Spriggs spoke as if he were taking the serious, historical view of the incident. “I imagine yours will, one of these days. Have you got anything you could show me?”

“Would you really care to see?”

“I can’t tell till you show me,” he said cautiously; but this time there was something so very like a smile among the stern features that Madge could see just what the line was that produced it.

She flew to her room, and seized Noah’s Dove, and in five minutes that much-travelled bird had spread his wings, – all six of them, – for the delectation of this mysterious critic.

Madge watched him, as he leaned back in his chair and examined the sketches. He seemed inclined to take his time over them, and she felt sure that her Student had never before been so seriously considered.

At last Mr. Spriggs laid the drawings upon the table and fixed his thoughtful gaze upon the artist. His contemplation of her countenance was prolonged a good many seconds, yet Madge did not feel in the least self-conscious; it never once occurred to her that this severe old gentleman was thinking of anything but her Student. She found herself taking a very low view of her work, and quite ready to believe that perhaps, after all, those unappreciative editors knew what they were about.

“Have you ever sent these to the Gay Head?” her visitor inquired casually.

“Oh, no! I should not dare send anything to the Gay Head!”

“Why not?”

“Why! Because it’s the best paper in the country. It would never look at my things.”

“It certainly won’t if you never give it a chance. You had better try it,” he went on, in a tone that carried a good deal of weight. “You know they can do no worse than return it; and I should think, myself, that the Gay Head was quite as well worth expending postage-stamps on as any other paper. Mind; I don’t say they’ll take your things, – but it’s worth trying for. By the way,” he added as he rose to go; “I wouldn’t send No. 5 if I were you; it’s a chestnut.”

He had picked up his hat and stood on his feet so unexpectedly that Madge was afraid he would escape her without a word of thanks.

“Oh, please wait just a minute,” she begged. “I haven’t told you a single word of how grateful I am. I feel somehow as if, – as if, —the worst were over!” This time Mr. Spriggs smiled broadly.

“And you will send Noah’s Dove to the Gay Head?”

“Yes, I will, because you advise me to. But you mustn’t think I’m conceited enough to expect him to roost there.”

And that very evening the dove spread his wings, – only five of them now, – and set forth on the most ambitious flight he had yet ventured upon.

In the next few days Madge found her thoughts much occupied with speculations regarding her mysterious visitor; everything about him, his name, his errand, both the matter and the manner of his speech, roused and piqued her curiosity. It was clear that he knew a great deal about art. And yet, if he were an artist, she would certainly be familiar with his name. Whatever his calling, he was sure to be distinguished. Those judicial eyes would be severe with any work more pretentious than that of a mere student; that firm, discriminating hand, – she had been struck with the way he handled her sketches, – would never have signed a poor performance. Perhaps it was Elihu Vedder in disguise, – or Sargent, or Abbey! Since the descent of the fairy-godmother upon the class a year ago, no miracle seemed impossible. And yet, the miracle which actually befell would have seemed, of all imaginable ones, the most incredible. It took place, too, in the simplest, most unpremeditated manner, as miracles have a way of doing.

One evening, about a week after the return of the miniature, the family were gathered together as usual about the argand burner. It was a warm evening, and Ned, who was to devote his energies to the cause of electrical science, when once he was delivered from the thraldom of the classics, had made some disparaging remarks about the heat engendered by gas.

“By the way,” said Mr. Burtwell, “that, reminds me! I have a letter for you, Madge. I met the postman just after I left the door this noon, and he handed me this with my gas bill. Who’s your New York correspondent?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Madge, with entire sincerity, for it was far too early to look for any word from the Gay Head.

The letter had the appearance of a friendly note, being enclosed in a square envelope, undecorated with any business address. Madge opened it, and glanced at the signature, which was at the bottom of the first page. The blood rushed to her face as her eye fell upon the name: “Philip Spriggs, Art Editor of the Gay Head.”

She read the letter very slowly, with a curious feeling that this was a dream, and she must be careful not to wake herself up. This was what she read:

“My dear Miss Burtwell,

“We like Noah’s Dove as much as I thought we should. We shall hope to get him out some time next year. Can’t you work up the pickpocket idea? That small boy, the second one from the right, is nucleus enough for another set. In fact, it is the small-boy element in your Student that makes him original – and true to life. We think that you have the knack, and count upon you for better work yet. We take pleasure in handing you herewith a check for this.

“Yours truly,“Philip Spriggs.”

The check was a very plain one on thin yellow paper, not in the least what she had looked for from a great publishing-house; but the amount inscribed in the upper left-hand corner of the modest slip of paper seemed to her worthy the proudest traditions of the Gay Head itself. The check was for sixty dollars.

As Madge gradually assured herself that she was awake, the first sensation that took shape in her mind was the very ridiculous one of regret that the mahogany table should have been deprived of its legitimate share in this great event. And then she remembered that it was her father himself who had handed her the letter.

She was still wondering how she should break the news to him, when she found herself giving an odd little laugh, and asking, “Father, what is your favourite line of ocean steamers?”

Mr. Burtwell, who had really felt no special curiosity as to his daughter’s correspondent, was once more immersed in his evening paper. He looked up, at her words, as all the family did, and was struck by the expression of her face.

“What makes you ask that?” he demanded sharply.

“Because I know you always keep your promises, and – there’s a letter you might like to read.”

Mr. Burtwell took the letter, frowning darkly, a habit of his when he was puzzled or anxious. He read the letter through twice, and then he examined the check. He did not speak at once. There was something so portentous in this deliberation, and something so very like emotion in his kind, sensible face, that even Ned was awed into respectful silence.

At last Mr. Burtwell turned his eyes to his daughter’s face, where everything, even suspense itself, seemed arrested, and said, in a matter-of-fact tone:

“I think you had better go by the North German Lloyd. Shall you start this week?”

“Oh, you darling!” cried Madge, throwing her arms about her father’s neck, regardless of letter and check, which, being still in his hands, were called upon to bear the brunt of this attack; “How can I ever make up my mind to leave you?”

The Ideas of Polly

CHAPTER I

DAN’S PLIGHT

“Well, Mis’ Lapham, I am sorry to hear it, I must say! It doos seem’s though you’d had your share of affliction!”

Mrs. Henry Dodge always emphasised a great many of her words, which habit gave to her remarks an impression of peculiar sincerity and warmth; a perfectly correct impression, too, it must be admitted. Her needle, moreover, being quite as energetic as her tongue, she was a valuable member of the sewing-circle, at which function she was now assisting with much spirit.

Mrs. Lapham accepted this tribute to her many trials with becoming modesty. She was a dull, colourless woman whose sole distinction lay in the visitations of affliction, and it is not too much to affirm that she was proud of them. She was sewing, not too rapidly, on a very long seam, which occupation was typical of her course of life. She sighed heavily in response to her neighbour’s words of sympathy, and said:

“It did seem hard that it should have been Dan, just as he was beginning to be a help to his uncle, and all. But I s’pose we’d ought to have been prepared for it.”

“There’s been quite a pause in the death-roll,” the Widow Criswell observed. She was engaged in sewing a button on a boy’s jacket with a black thread.

“How long is it since Eliza went?” asked Miss Louisa Bailey, pursuing the widow’s train of thought.

“Seven years this month. She began to cough at Christmas, and by Washington’s Birthday she was in her grave.”

“And Jane? They didn’t go very far apart, did they?”

“No, Jane died eleven months before Eliza; and their mother went three years before that, and their father when Dan was a baby; that’s goin’ on sixteen years.”

“Well, you have had a hard time, I will say!” exclaimed Mrs. Dodge. “Your Martha losing her little girl, and John’s wife breaking her collar-bone, and all, and now this to be gone through with! I should think you’d feel discouraged!”

“I do; real discouraged. But I s’pose it’s no more than I’d ought to expect, with such an inheritance.”

“Have there been many cases of lung-trouble on your side of the family, Mrs. Lapham?” Miss Bailey inquired with respectful interest.

“No; Sister Fitch was the first case.”

For a few seconds, conversation languished, and only the snip of Mrs. Royce’s scissors could be heard, and the soft rustle of cotton cloth. The sewing-circle was going on in the church vestry where there was a faint odour from the kerosene lamps, which had just been lighted. The Widow Criswell was the first to break the silence.

“Polly ain’t showed no symptoms yet, has she?” she asked, testing one of the buttons as if sceptical of her thread.

“Well, no; not yet. But then Dan seemed as smart as anybody six months ago, and just look at him to-day!”

The mental eyes of a score of women were turned upon Dan, as he was daily seen, round-shouldered and hollow-chested, toiling along the snowy country roads to and from school, coughing as he went. The topic was not an uncongenial one to the members of the sewing-circle, who had really very little to talk about. So absorbed were they, indeed, in the discussion of poor Dan’s fate, and of the long list of casualties that had preceded it, that no one noticed the entrance of a young girl, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, who had come to help with the supper. There was an air of peculiar freshness about her, and as she stood in her blue dress and white apron near the door, her ruddy brown hair shining in the lamp-light, the effect was like the opening of a window in a close room. Her step was arrested in the act of coming forward, and, as she paused to listen, the pretty colour was quite blotted out of her cheeks.

“I don’t think Dan’s will be a lingering case,” Mrs. Lapham was saying. “The lingering cases are the most trying.”

Polly stood motionless. Was it true then, that which she had dreaded, that which she had shrunk from facing? Was it more than a cold that Dan had got? Was Dan really ill? Her Dan? Really ill? Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, but no one seemed to hear it.

“Queer that the doctors don’t find any cure for lung-trouble,” Mrs. Royce was saying. “Seems as though there must be some way of stopping it, if you could only find it out.”

“Have you tried Kinderling’s Certain Cure?” asked Mrs. Dodge. “They do say that it’s very efficacious.”

“Well, no,” said Mrs. Lapham; “I don’t hold much to medicines myself; but if I did I should think it just a wilful waste to try them for Dan. The boy’s doomed, to begin with, and there’s no help for it.”

“There is a help for it, there shall be a help for it!” cried a voice, vibrating with youthful energy and emotion. “I don’t see how you can talk so, Aunt Lucia! Dan isn’t doomed! he sha’n’t die! I won’t let him die!”

The women looked at Polly and then they looked at one another, fairly abashed by the girl’s spirit; all, that is, excepting Aunt Lucia, who was not impressionable enough to feel anything but the superficial rudeness of Polly’s outbreak.

“That’ll do, Polly,” she said, with a spiritless severity. “This is no place for a display of temper.”

The colour had come back into the girl’s face now, and there were hot tears in her eyes. She turned without a word and left the room, nor was she seen again among the waitresses who came to hand the tea.

Polly was rather ashamed of having run away from the sewing-circle, and she had serious thoughts of going back. It was the first time in her life that she had allowed herself to be routed by circumstances; but somehow she felt as if she could not find it in her heart to hand about tea and seed-cakes, sandwiches and quince-preserve, to people who could think such dreadful thoughts of Dan. And then, besides, she knew what a pleasant surprise it would be for Dan to have her all to himself for an evening. Uncle Seth would be sure to go for his weekly game of checkers with Deacon White, and she could help Dan with his algebra and Latin, and see that he was warm and “comfy,” and perhaps find that he did not cough so much as he did the evening before.

They had a very cozy evening, she and Dan, just as she had planned it in every particular but one, namely, the cough. There was no improvement in that since the night before, and for the first time the boy spoke of it.

“I say, Polly! Isn’t it stupid, the way this cold hangs on? Do you remember how long it is since I caught it?”

“Why, no, Dan. It does seem a good while, doesn’t it? I guess it must be about over by this time. Don’t you know how suddenly those things go?”

Dan, who was on his way to bed, had stopped, close to the air-tight stove, to warm his hands.

“I wish it were summer, Polly,” he said, with a wistful look in his great black eyes that cut Polly to the heart. “It’s been such a cold winter; and a fellow gets kind of tired of barking all the time.”

“It’ll be spring before you know it, Dan, you see if it isn’t, and you’ll forget you ever had a cold in your life.”

And when, half an hour later, the evening was over, and Polly was safe in her bed, she buried her head in her pillow and cried herself to sleep.

But tears and bewailings were not a natural resource with Polly, whose forte was action. Her first thought in the morning was: what should she do about it? Something must be done, of course, and she was the only one to do it. What it was she had not the faintest idea, but then it was her business to find out. Here was she, eighteen years old, strong and hearty, and with good practical common sense, the natural guardian and protector of her younger brother. It was time she bestirred herself!

As a first step, she got up with the sun and dressed herself, and then she slipped down-stairs to the parlour where such of her father’s books as had been rescued from auction were lodged; her father had been the village doctor. All the medical works had been sold, and many other volumes besides, but among those remaining was an old encyclopædia which had proved to Polly a mine of information on many subjects. As she took down the third volume, she heard a portentous Meaouw! and there, outside the window, stood Mufty, the grey cat, rubbing himself against the frosty pane. Polly opened the window and Mufty sprang in, bringing a puff of frosty air in his wake. Without so much as a word of thanks he walked over to the stove. Finding it, however, cold, as only an empty air-tight stove can be cold, he strolled, with a disengaged air, beneath which lurked a very distinct intention, toward the only warm object in the room, namely, Polly in her woollen gown. She had the volume open on the table before her, and was deep in its perusal, murmuring as she read.

“Appears to have committed its ravages from the earliest time,” Polly read, “and its distribution is probably universal, though far from equal.”

At this point Mufty lifted himself lightly in the air, after the manner peculiar to cats, and landed in Polly’s lap. After switching his tail across her eyes once or twice, and rubbing himself against the book in rather a disturbing way, he at last settled down, and began purring vigorously in token of satisfaction. The room was very cold, and Polly, without interrupting her reading, was glad to bury her hands in the thick fur. Presently the colour in her cheeks grew brighter and her breath came quicker. There was a way, after all! People had been saved, people a good deal sicker than Dan, – saved by a change of climate. What could be simpler? Just to pick Dan up and carry him off! And such fun, too!

“Mufty,” she whispered, excitedly, “Mufty, what should you say to Dan and me going away and never coming back again?”

“Brrrrr, brrrrr,” quoth Mufty.

“I knew you would approve! You know how necessary it is, and you think it best to do it; don’t you, Mufty?”